


After me comes the flood

by Kangoo



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cayde Survived Forsaken AU, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Stasis, but at what cost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28196679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: “Somebody always needs to go first. I know this. I go first.” — Hunter sayingAyin comes to Cayde with her concerns about Stasis.
Relationships: Cayde-6 & Female Guardian (Destiny)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	After me comes the flood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BaronetCoins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronetCoins/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to my dear friend BaronetCoins!!! Your friendship is the gift that keeps on giving. I hope this can bring you at least as much joy as your writing and characters always bring me :D
> 
> This story features their Awoken Hunter Ayin, who was mentored by Cayde and is a BIT of a Paladin when it comes to the Light. She's terrible and also my favorite and I love her very much. It's also set in an alternate universe where she managed to get to Cayde in time to save his life, but not his Ghost.
> 
> Summary is actually a quote from [this](https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/jenny-slate-little-weirds-book-editor-jean-garnett.html) interview.
> 
> While reading, I recommend listening to "Where is the Justice" from the Death Note musical, since it's the song that inspired this whole thing!

Ayin paces outside the hangar like a cabal warhound waiting for its beastmaster to cry havoc. The City has been long emptied by the late hour. She’s thankful for it. There is no one here but the Traveler to witness her agitation, the way Light bleeds out of her in fiery sparks trailing down her fingers. She hasn’t had such a weak grasp on her Light for years — not since she was a kinderguardian — but tonight she doesn’t care to control it.

She’s not supposed to be here. In fairness no one’s supposed to be anywhere but in bed at this hour, but she in particular was meant to be out of the City two hours ago, bound for Europa on a mission with her team. 

Something came up.

 _Something_ is yet another group of Guardians in the Crucible encasing their opponents in ice coffins. _Something_ is the Kinderguardian she met earlier, who turned to stasis out of _curiosity_. _Something_ is the complete silence from the Vanguard while the protectors of the City collude with the Darkness.

If they won’t do anything about this, then it’s her duty to convince them… before she does it herself.

Resolution renewed, she strides into the hangar.

It’s empty as expected, mechanics and engineers gone to catch some shut-eye as ship traffic slows for the night. The only source of movement left is the flicker of an old camping light propped up on Holliday’s workbench. Cayde is bent over it, grumbling over some piece of intel or other. Every so often he’ll shift and obscure the feeble light, casting his long shadow over the floor.

She clears her throat lest she catches a knife in the throat. He gets jumpy without Sundance warning him of approaching people.

Cayde whirls around, lifts a hand to his chest as if to still a beating heart he doesn’t, technically, have. “Oh,” he says, relaxing. “It’s you. Hi!”

“Waiting for someone else?”

“Kind of expecting Ikora to come drag me to bed, actually.” He turns to fully face her and folds his arms with a tired sigh. “Lemme tell you, if you’d told me during her Crucible days that she’d be such a mother hen I’d have called you mad.”

Ayin is hardly prone to mothering anyone, let alone Cayde, but even she can’t deny the spark of concern igniting inside her at the sight of him. His eyes are dim with exhaustion, whatever machinery that keeps him alive running on a third of the power it needs. But more than that he looks _weary_. Havy. There’s something weighing him down that wasn’t there before.

(Its name is grief, the same one that hounds his footsteps since the Prison of Elders, taking the space Sundance used to fill. He’s better than he used to be — better at hiding it in the daylight at least. But here, with only her as a witness, he lets the full brunt of it show plain on his face.)

“You look terrible,” she says, because it’s easier than _I’m worried about you._

“Thanks,” he replies, only half sarcastic, because it’s easier than putting into words the anger-grief-bittersweetness that comes with pity or concern (both interchangeable). Like so many things, Ayin only knows to notice it because she’s done it herself, learned it from him. “So, what can I do for you, Crusader?”

The nickname is affectionate, an in-joke. It’s also a reminder, though he never means it that way.

“I have…” She pauses, unsure how to bring it up. “ _Concerns_.”

“Concerns?”

“About Guardians using stasis.”

“Aah, that’s what I thought.” 

Cayde chuckles, but his whole demeanor changes as he steels himself for a serious conversation. She’s more familiar than most with the seriousness he hides under his jokey behavior, but it’s always a relief to see him take this so seriously. Even if everyone stopped listening to her, she knows Cayde would always let her say her piece.

“Do you know what I saw in the Crucible today?”

“No?”

“Ice bursting through armor. Tornadoes of hail. _Stasis_ , everywhere. And all Shaxx had to say about it was that it’s _a tool_. ‘A weapon like any other’. He _let it happen,_ like it’s not the very thing we’ve been fighting against all our lives.” Again she starts to pace, almost against her will. Tension runs through her limbs, fingers curling around the hilt of an imaginary knife. She hates this game of politics, of begging the Vanguard to take action when it would only take a word from them to unleash her on this new enemy. “This can’t go on, Cayde. You — the Vanguard — can’t turn a blind eye this time. The Darkness has already taken Io, Titan, Mercury- and now it’s taking _Guardians_? It’s not going to stop. Not unless _we_ stop it. And this? This ain’t it.”

Out the corner of her eyes she sees him shift, tilt his head in consideration.

“So, what are you suggesting? That we should ban stasis?”

His sceptical tone makes the spark of righteousness flare. He doesn’t get it— be he will, soon. He has to understand she’s right on this. “Yes, exactly!”

Calmly, almost placating, he replies, “People are gonna try their hands at it whether we allow it or not.”

“But if you forbid it, I can hunt them down for it. Bring them to justice.”

Her voice rings in the heavy silence. For a moment, nothing breaks the silence but her breathing and the soft whirring emitting from Cayde. Then,

“Ayin...”

He sounds nearly pleading, but she can’t allow him to interrupt her. Not yet. She can still convince him, she knows it. He has to see her point. He _must_. 

Breathing deeply, she tries to leash her enthusiasm lest he mistakes it for fanaticism. 

Without his support, she can’t reach the Vanguard, and without the Vanguard, there’s nothing she can do. She learned that from the new Dredgens, and the Renegade who runs after them. It takes more than a single man to take such widespread evil down. Aying doesn’t have that much time. She needs resources, the space and power to lock up her targets, keep them off the streets. She needs the system on her side.

“It’s our job to keep the people of the City safe. Our _duty_. How can civilians trust us to do that when any Guardian could be another Dredgen Yor in disguise? How can they trust us, when nothing is done to keep them safe from ourselves? We can’t bother with compromise with so much on the line-”

“ _Ayin.”_

She stops her pacing, turns around, ready to beg for a moment more of his attention—

His eyes stop her in her tracks.

_Why does he look so sad?_

Cayde holds her stare for a second. His shoulders are tense, betraying his seemingly-relaxed position. He looks just like when he has to announce the loss of one of his Hunters, or when he has to send a fireteam on a mission they’re unlikely to come back from unscathed, if at all. Like the words are stuck in his throat, tangled in the wires.

Eventually he gives up on words altogether — she can see it in the working of his jaw, the way the light behind his teeth dims as his vocal processor goes idle again.

Slowly (like he doesn’t want to do it. Like he’s afraid he’ll spook her) he offers her his hand, palm up. Under her watchful gaze, he shifts his fingers minutely—

And frost blooms over the leather of his glove.

Ayin’s breath freezes in her lungs.

Silence settles over them like the second before thunder. Both stare at the ice crystal suspended over his hand. Ayin with mounting horror, and Cayde as an excuse to avoid her eyes. Then, a flick of his wrist shatters it. The shards turn to fine glittering dust on their way down, and then to nothing, never touching the ground. 

For a moment Ayin is overwhelmed by feelings — shock, betrayal, sadness, fear, burning anger. They tangle together, blades interlocked into a sharp ball of _hurt_ , until all she can feel is an odd sort of numbness. Like she’s been cut open and sedated.

“Why?” She whispers.

His sigh turns into fog, briefly leaving his face as nothing but two burning eyes staring at her through the faint cloud.

“You know why I hate being Vanguard so much?”

Ayin snarls at the non sequitur. 

She’s not usually so prone to losing her temper, but the betrayal lit a fire inside her she doesn’t feel like quenching.

“Is this really about _hating your_ _job_?” 

She hates the way her voice cracks at the end, but Cayde, mercifully, doesn’t react in any way to it. He just shakes his head, faceplate shifting minutely in frustration like he’s trying to explain something and can’t find the words that will make her listen.

“I wouldn’t- It’s about _doing_ the damn job.” He rubs his head like he has a headache, pushes his hood back as his hand trails down to the back of his neck, resting there for a moment. “You said it was your duty- you know what’s a Hunter's duty? It’s being _out there_ , charting unknown places, going where no one’s gone before, all that jazz. Not being stuck in the City. Being a Vanguard, it means sucking at being a Hunter, and- I’m _good_ at being a Hunter, right?”

He’s got the stereotypical recklessness in spades, that’s for sure. 

Not, that’s unfair. Cayde has a core of steel that won’t let him back down in the face of insurmountable odds. _That’s_ what makes him a good Hunter. Reckless as it may seems, it’s a true quality, one she admires and has always tried to emulate. It only makes her angrier at the powder ice still caught in the folds of his clothes. He should have known better.

Unphased by her lack of response, he continues. 

“Turns out that might not even be true, huh? Told them spending that much time in the Tower would make me go soft.” He does that heartbreaking thing, where he tilts his head slightly like he’s expecting Sundance to appear just over his shoulder with something witty to say. “But- it made me think about it. The whole duty thing. I spent all of my time as a Vanguard doing everything I could to go back in the field like I’d do my job better there- and when it went _wrong,_ I had to reflect on like- my mistakes and stuff. And I thought- maybe I approached the issue the wrong way, you know?”

“You’re not answering my question.”

She’s proud to hear her voice stay level despite her frustration. She wants to trust Cayde, trust that he’ll eventually get to the point and explain to her… What? That it all makes sense? That it’s going to be _fine?_ At this point Ayin’s not sure whether she’d rather hear reassurances or apologies. 

Actually she might punch him if he apologies. He’s made a terrible choice: the only thing worse than this would be that he’s unsure about it himself. And as little as she’s willing to be convinced— she _wants_ to be. She wants, for once, to be proven wrong, to see that stasis isn’t as evil as she assumed.

Anything that will make Cayde’s use of it more bearable.

“I’m gettin’ to it! What I mean is- Hunters are s’posed to scout ahead. First ones in the field, to gather intel and make sure everyone’s got the info they need to do their job and come back safe. We’re the _literal_ vanguard. And with the Darkness moving into the system- we need that kind of assurance. We need someone to jump into the unknown and tell us how far the bottom is.” 

“Somebody always needs to go first,” Ayin says softly, like muscle memory.

Cayde doesn’t bother finishing the saying. She knows it as well as he does. “I can’t do much without a Ghost, but I can do this. I can be there when Guardians need someone to turn to when their new powers go awry. And… yeah, I can be here when one of them needs to be stopped. That’s good enough for me.”

Ayin crushes the hint of pity that rises in her. It wouldn’t go appreciated: Hunters, as a rule, would sooner die than be pitied. And if she lets herself feel _pity_ then she’ll start to think about it. 

She’ll think about the fact that her best friend, her family, is running out of time.

It’s already a miracle he survived the Prison of Elders. Most ghostless don’t make it an hour past their Ghost’s death. But she was there, and she couldn’t save Sundance, but she could save him, and she _did_. When the night is dark and she finds herself regretting not being fast enough, she always turns to that thought for comfort: she got him out alive. He won’t be there forever, but at least she has a few decades left with him before he ends up like Banshee and starts forgetting her face.

(If she told him about that fear, she knows the first words out of Cayde’s mouth would be “I’d never forget _you_ ”. But he doesn’t get to choose. She’s long given up on hoping for the best.)

And now— now he looks her in the eyes, and he tells her he made the one choice that’s sure to shorten these years they have left. She’s seen what happened to Eramis. She can’t bear to imagine it. The dark ice crawling over his limbs, choking what’s left of his light. 

It breaks her heart. 

Not only because she loves him, and she doesn’t want him to be hurt. But because he made the one choice that could drive her away from him.

Taking in the Darkness, supporting the Guardian who made the same terrible decision, accepting help from the very enemy you seek to destroy. This— this isn’t a mystery that needs to be solved. This isn’t _terra incognita_ that needs to be charted. At least not by them. if anyone should do it it’s one of the Awoken Techeuns, or the Warlocks already banished from the City because of their heretical research. Hell, even Eris could do it. Someone who’s already dipped into the dark and is eager to learn more.

Someone who’s already lost. 

Not the one person Ayin can’t bear to lose.

She swallows past the lump in her throat. She closes her shaking hands into fists. Her heart beats unevenly with anger and grief. She pushes all those useless signals aside, tries to find her way to the rational mindset that earned her the nickname of _Crusader._

Don’t think about the implications. About the pain and the loss. Set it all aside. Just like in battle.

A great calm settles in her.

“How… _could you_.” 

Her voice is nearly as cold as the power she came here to plead against.

“I’m sorry, Ayin, but-”

“ _Don’t. Apologize_ ,” She grits out through clenched teeth. “You’ve _seen_ what happens to those who use stasis! How could you be so- so _stupid_?”

His eyes narrow, light dimming ever so slightly. “I’m not an idiot, Ayin. I know what I’m doing.”

There’s an edge to Cayde’s voice this time. A note of warning. 

But Ayin is far past listening to the sirens. _She_ is the warning. The receding of the water before a tidal wave; the purple skies before a hurricane.

“Do you? What is this, then, an overly complicated _suicide attempt_? I didn’t save your ass in the Prison of Elders so you could throw it away _-_ ”

“Throwing it away? There’s more to fighting a war than killing the enemy faster than it can kill you. At least _I’m_ helping people.”

The anger simmering in her guts flares, shattering her artificial calm. Her whole body tenses like it’s getting ready to go for the kill.

“Are you saying I’m _not_?”

He takes a step forward, gestures toward the Hangar — the damage from the Red War that they never got to repairing, the pictures of Guardians swallowed by the encroaching Darkness they pinned to a wall as a memorial. Proofs of past catastrophes.

“Nothing we’ve done so far managed to stop the Darkness. Maybe stasis will help, maybe it won’t, but we have to _try_.”

“And risk playing right into their hands?”

“If that’s what it takes to survive, yes!”

“We’re supposed to _fight_ the Darkness, not join-”

“World’s changing, kiddo. We do what we have to do to survive-”

“Don’t. Call me. Kid.”

Cayde is reckless, impulsive, and he doesn’t know when to quit. Dogged determination has gotten him out of problems more often than he can count.

But sometimes, it also means he doesn’t think before he talks, and he says things such as,

“Why should I, when you’re just as naive?”

The silence that follows is a living thing. It stretches until it fills every inch of the space and curls around Ayin, swallowing her as well. It’s like she’s trapped inside of her own body, deaf to anything but the hammering of her heart and the roaring of the fire inside her chest. Her mind is stuck in a loop—

( _how dare you how dare you how dare you_ )

( _why would you cut me off like that why why why_ )

( _betrayer_ )

When she comes back to herself there are sparks slowly dying on her fingers, and Cayde’s pinned against the pillar he was leaning against.

They make an odd tableau, the two of them. Her, hand outstretched, still as a marble statue, and Cayde, stopped mid-movement, his own hand reaching for her as if to apologize again, a knife sticking out of the hood of his cape, inches from his neck.

“Ayin, I didn’t mean-”

_Then why did you say it?_

She doesn’t voice the thought — doesn’t trust herself to stay calm, to miss the next time a knife slips from her fingers. She flexes her fingers, forces herself to relax, slows her breathing.

He lets his hand drop.

When she leaves, she doesn’t look back, and he doesn’t call for her.

**Author's Note:**

> come haunt me on [tumblr](https://youngster-monster.tumblr.com/)


End file.
